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A Novel
by Hannah Deitch
Darkly funny and provocative, this edge-of-your-seat thrill ride follows two unlikely fugitives—an SAT tutor who finds her rich employers brutally murdered and the bound woman she frees from their mansion—an irresistible debut novel perfect for fans of The Guest and My Sister, the Serial Killer.
A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she'd be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles.
Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors' Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within moments, they go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives.
Suddenly at the heart of a manhunt and accompanied by a mysterious woman who refuses to speak, Evie knows the only way to clear her name is to find the real killer. But first she'll have to break down the barriers of her companion, who is quickly becoming the most important person in Evie's upside-down life. Their breathless spree takes them across the U.S. as developments in the case shock the nation and the press runs wild with Evie's story: a gifted kid turned killer. She's now on the cover of every magazine and newspaper—anointed the new Charles Manson, a bloodthirsty ninety-nine percenter looking to start a class war. Evie is finally someone.
By turns cuttingly hilarious and deeply insightful, Killer Potential is a strikingly original debut. A literary novel with the page-turning intensity of a thriller that asks timely questions about our belief in the romance of social mobility, and how the stories we're sold about our potential can shape the course of our lives.
"Deitch's twisty tale takes the form of an after-the-fact tell-all by Evie, and her wry narration adds texture and fizz to the action without skimping on character development. Neo-noir fans will get a kick out of this." —Publishers Weekly
"Fierce, fun, wild, and enraging. Killer Potential is by turns moving, thrilling, raucous and funny. A deeply accomplished debut." —Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark
"Compelling and cool, Hannah Deitch has written a Thelma & Louise for our times." —Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning and The Girl on the Train
"Thrilling, audacious, and laden with more booby traps than a survivalist's lair, Killer Potential heralds the arrival of a stunning new literary voice. A riotous, wholly singular debut." —Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
This information about Killer Potential was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Hannah Deitch is a former SAT tutor with an M.A. in English from UC Irvine, where she studied Marxist theory and contemporary pop culture. She previously worked as an arts magazine editor and holds an M.A. in journalism from USC. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Killer Potential is her first novel.
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